Chapter 01
“Behave yourself. Before I bite off every single one of your fingers.”
A searingly hot breath touched the nape of her neck.
Edith’s body trembled violently. At that, the purple eyes that were nibbling at her fingertips glinted like a beast’s.
Edith swallowed dryly under that gaze—the gaze of a predator observing its prey.
Here he was, already devouring her, and yet making it impossible for her to string together a single sentence. She resented him for it.
“Wai—, huff, wait a moment…!”
Edith struggled to push against the man’s solid chest. But rather than being pushed away, he pressed his body even closer.
Aedric laced his fingers with Edith’s and let out a low, throaty laugh.
“Edith.”
At the sound of her name, Edith instinctively curled inward, her body shrinking. The man growled in response.
“Even if this act is solely for treatment, there must be no such dealings with anyone other than me.”
“…”
“You need to answer.”
Edith’s lips parted, but instead of a reply, a small moan escaped her. The words that came from his mouth seemed to strangle every nerve in her body.
—
*’You have a fate of being devoured by a beast. I see a beast that will bite your nape and brand you with a red mark.’*
Beyond her fading vision, the words someone had once spoken to her resurfaced.
‘If the beast that bites my nape and brands me with a red mark is this man…’
Edith reached out and pulled Aedric into an embrace.
—
***
Human life is ridiculously fragile, and death always lurks nearby.
Those who have lived out their years, those who are ill, those who have met with sudden accidents…
Or those who perish at the execution ground.
“Bring in the prisoner.”
The place Edith now lived, the Kesmel Empire, was thick with the stench of blood rather than the vitality of life.
High upon the execution platform, someone was being dragged out by knights, their limbs bound.
The prisoner, who had been writhing this way and that, went limp the moment they were thrown to the ground—as if dead.
By coincidence, Edith, standing nearby, let out a short, “Ah,” of surprise upon seeing this. She hadn’t heard any news of an execution today. But even if she wanted to step back, the gathered crowd of passersby made it impossible.
“I shall now carry out the execution.”
The prisoner dragged onto the platform was wearing the robes of an imperial healer. Dried blood stained their clothes.
“A healer?”
“That’s right. An imperial healer, a healer…”
Just as murmurs filled the entire plaza, someone appeared upon the execution platform.
In the air that instantly froze, the faint sound of someone, perhaps frightened, sucking in a breath could be heard from somewhere.
“The, the Crown Prince…”
Edith, who had been trying her best to look away from the platform, instinctively raised her gaze at the words “Crown Prince.”
A man, twice the size of an ordinary person, with brown skin, stood dressed in a golden uniform.
Jet-black hair, as if holding the night sky, fluttered in the wind. Beneath the hair tousled by the breeze were elegant features.
What caught her eye first were the thick eyebrows and cold violet eyes. Those violet eyes, looking down as if everything in the world lay beneath his feet, were chillingly cold.
He was breathtakingly beautiful, yet a man so brutal and cold it took one’s breath away.
“Ghk, ghhhgh!”
At that moment, the prisoner, who had been lying motionless as if dead, convulsed, twisting like a crushed insect.
Yet the Crown Prince showed not a flicker of agitation, merely giving a low, quiet command. The knights who received the order approached and pinned the healer down.
“Ghk, ghghgh, ugh, grrrgh…!”
Pinned down by the knights, the healer screamed and shook their head wildly. But the knights didn’t so much as blink.
“Healer Reina has attempted to insult the Imperial Family with her abilities. I sentence her to death for her crimes.”
Once the prisoner was secured to the guillotine, the man slowly raised his hand.
The moment his fingertip pointed towards the ground—*swish*!—with a dull thud, the healer’s head fell to the floor.
The Crown Prince calmly looked down at the healer’s head rolling unceremoniously across the ground.
Even as blood splattered everywhere, staining his cheek, he didn’t flinch. He merely glanced at the head with a look of utter indifference.
Watching this, Edith unconsciously clenched her skirt. The sight of his eyes as he looked at the severed head rolling on the ground was chilling beyond compare.
A monster born of imperial blood.
A man with such a cruel disposition that he only ever roamed the battlefields—the Crown Prince of the Kesmel Empire, a man burdened with not a single favorable epithet.
Edith stared at his retreating back for a long time as it slowly vanished.
—
***
The most secluded corner of the capital. A territory of the forsaken, where the world’s light never reaches.
As she stepped inside, the eyes of those on the verge of death turned towards Edith. But Edith ignored the gazes clinging to her and walked quickly.
Her destination was the place where the sickest of the slums gathered.
She had one reason for going there: to care for the ill. To save as many as possible.
“I heard another healer died today?”
At that moment, a woman leaning against the entrance of the alley spoke.
Looking directly at Edith, she smoothed her visibly expensive violet shawl and let out a peculiar smile.
She was a fortune-teller who had been lurking around this area for the past few days.
“…I was just on my way back from seeing it.”
Edith replied in a low voice, and the woman continued with a smile.
“The healer lady must be feeling a chill down her spine too. You never know when your head might go *thump!* and roll away.”
Her heart sank instantly. She had been conducting her medical activities as secretly as she could, so where on earth had the rumor spread? Her hand, clutching her skirt, grew sweaty.
“I am not a healer.”
“Oh my, really? To my eyes, you look like one. And not only that.”
The woman approached slowly and stood before Edith. Her gaze seemed to see through everything.
Standing close, the woman bent down to meet Edith’s eyes. The eyes visible between the waves of her cascading hair were so mysterious that a wave of fear washed over Edith.
“You have a fate of being devoured by a beast. I see a beast that will bite your nape and brand you with a red mark.”
A thick scent wafted in. It was a voice filled with conviction that Edith’s life would unfold just as she had foretold.
Edith stared blankly at the woman’s words, then shuddered and took a few steps back. Seeing Edith on high alert, the woman adjusted her shawl and chuckled.
“Be careful not to get devoured.”
Leaving those words behind, the woman brushed past Edith. Edith stood there blankly, watching her retreating back until her long hair disappeared into the alleyway.
A strange person, Edith thought as she turned around.
“Don’t get caught being a healer, she means.”
Well, she had been performing quite a bit of medical work lately. It would be stranger if rumors didn’t leak. Edith let out a low sigh.
Edith was a person with healing abilities—that is, divine power. Her golden eyes were proof of that.
Of course, divine power was only a part of her abilities. Through contact, she could discern a person’s illness, and through her saliva or blood, she could treat it. It was an ability she had discovered by chance.
But Edith tried as much as possible not to use bodily fluids or divine power, treating people in her own way. The medical skills she had learned and practiced as an emergency medicine resident in her past life were more than sufficient to be useful here as well.
Edith spread her palms and gazed at them, letting out a faint sigh.
What great crime was it to treat and save people, that they were so desperate to catch and kill them for it?
Just then.
“Kyaaaaah!”
With a piercing scream, people began to pour out from the opposite alley.
“…Huh?”
Edith, with a bewildered expression, raised her head and looked ahead.
From across the way, something—so grotesque it was impossible to tell whether it was human or beast—was approaching with bizarre steps.
Edith flinched and instinctively took a step back, then stopped as she realized what it was.
It was a person. A man drenched in blood.
So much blood had been shed that his hair and clothes were indistinguishable in color.
As he slowly approached, passersby, their faces pale with fright, cried out in piercing voices.
“He’s soaked in blood! He’s sick, he’s sick! He must have the plague!”
“Kill, we have to kill him, kill him!”
But Edith paid no heed and walked towards him.
His jet-black hair, stained red with blood, was caked with dust, and his unfocused, swaying blue eyes showed that the man was not in his right mind.
His movements were alarmingly unsteady, as if he had been attacked by someone. Moreover, his body was covered in knife wounds.
“Everyone, calm down! This person doesn’t have the plague!”
Edith called out hurriedly.
“He seems to have been attacked by someone! Someone, please bring a stretcher!”
Edith spoke urgently and supported him. Gasping, barely catching his breath, he opened his mouth.
At that moment.
“*Cough*…!”
A gush of liquid from the man’s mouth soaked Edith’s clothes. Along with it, the man’s body crumpled.
The moment Edith saw the blood the man had vomited, she reflexively held her breath. The moment of her first death flashed before her eyes.
—
*’…Please, save me.’*
—
A chilling voice passed by her ear like a phantom.
But Edith squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to erase the remnants of the past. Now was not the time for such sentiment.
Her fingertips trembled and memories of the past invaded her mind, but Edith struggled to compose herself as she laid the man down.
“Unconscious. Breathing is present, pulse is…”
After checking his consciousness and breathing, Edith unfastened the buttons of his thick jacket and pressed her ear to his left chest.
Fortunately, his heart was beating, albeit slowly. Edith let out a sigh of relief upon confirming his heartbeat.
‘Even though the wounds are severe, he’s not dead yet.’
Moreover, the wounds weren’t deep enough to show bone. At this rate, she could definitely treat him and save his life. Edith’s gaze, examining the man’s wounds, shifted to his hand.
More precisely, to the sharply honed sword he was gripping tightly, as if it were his lifeline.
The bluish-glowing blade was soaked with blood.
At the sight, a chilling voice echoed once more like a phantom.
—
*’How does it feel to be killed by a patient you saved with your own hands, huh?’*
—
Edith squeezed her eyes shut once more. The memories she had forced down were crawling back, trying to coil around her entire body like chains.
Was it really okay to treat this man?
If she rashly treated him and someone died… no. What if, just in case, this man tried to kill her?
If, like back then, she were to meet such a vain death…
“…”
Unknowingly, Edith brought her hand to the man’s neck.
For an instant, the face of the patient she had once saved and who had killed her overlapped with this man’s face.
“Ah…”
Her vision swam.
